Winders: Storm a grim reminder of hurricanes past

Posted: Sunday, September 19, 2004

I have a window the size of an overturned Buick overlooking my bed and what it costs me in higher energy bills I more than recoup in the distraction it provides during sleepless nights. This past Thursday was one of those nights when I cashed in.

And as I watched Hurricane Ivan's winds and rains snap the trees outside that window, I couldn't help but to think of Charlotte Poythress and her family, even though Charlotte has been dead for exactly five years now.

I also thought about six people in Edgecombe County, N.C. who drowned after a boat carrying a dozen folks from their flood-threatened homes capsized; a Nash County, N.C. woman who died after her car stalled on Interstate 95 in four feet of water; a state patrolman saving a stranded motorist killed in a street-turned-raging-river.

All five years gone. All still very much alive in my head.

But Charlotte Poythress was the only name I could remember a half of a decade later. And I just couldn't stop thinking about her.

Jason Winders

Executive Editor

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See, these folks visit me each time a hurricane blows my way. And while it seems everyone I know has a hurricane story, not everyone has had to make a story out of a hurricane.

That's why I remembered Charlotte during yet another hurricane on the anniversary of her death.

As a reporter for a small newspaper in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., I went to visit Charlotte's family only days after the body of the 43-year-old mother and fiancee was found in the receding waters of Fishing Creek on the Halifax-Nash County, N.C. line in September 1999. She was one of the 51 people killed by Hurricane Floyd that year.

Now for those of you who do not remember, and why would most of you remember, September 1999 was a bad time for eastern North Carolina. While Floyd's winds topped out at 130 miles per hour, earning it only a Category 3 rating, the storm was 580 miles across, almost twice the size of typical Atlantic hurricanes. On Sept. 16, it made landfall, dumping 20 inches of rain in 12 hours. This was on top of 6 inches of rain already dropped by Tropical Storm Dennis 10 days earlier.

Our world was a bit of a mess that week.

But the following day, Floyd's winds died, the sun peeked out and thousands of us - even though many remained without power - went back to work and resumed as normal a schedule as we could.

I walked into my newsroom to discover water standing 3-feet deep. My desk had become an island. "Well," I thought, "you don't see that every day."

Even though it was the only day I didn't get a newspaper out the door in 10 years of doing this, I laughed with my co-workers because not only were we safe, but we honestly thought the worst was over.

We were wrong.

That night, the rivers rose up. The Tar, Neuse, Roanoke and Pamlico overran their banks and spilled into towns during what would later be called a 500-year flood event. The devastated area still recovers from the damage done. In fact, it will be a long time before eastern North Carolina forgets Hurricane Floyd.

I know that's especially true for Charlotte's family because it was in those rising waters where the dreams of Charlotte, her family and friends were swept away.

All were set to gather that next weekend when Charlotte would marry her fiance. Her first husband died several years prior, so she was eager to wed a second time.

But those plans died in the budding hours of a Thursday morning.

Along with her fiancé and step-son, Charlotte was returning from a neighboring city when the family's van was swallowed by the creek's waters. Her step-son climbed out of a window and moved onto the roof where he remained. Charlotte and her fiancé never made it to the roof.

They went out through the sliding door, but were immediately swept away by the current.

As they raced down the creek, her fiancé grabbed a tree with one arm and Charlotte with the other. But his grip began to slip on both.

He watched as the woman he was to marry was swept away.

I still see the faces of that family now five years to the day after I paid them an invited visit to their home. They had called me to tell their story - one I am certain they have never forgotten and, in fact, commemorate this weekend.

And as I look out this window of mine at yet another storm, it's obvious this is a story I never will forget either.

* Jason Winders is executive editor of the Athens Banner-Herald. He can be contacted at jason.winders@onlineathens.com